“Which will force us to go back downstairs and relive the tea party horror to get a new key,” Ashwini guessed, closing her eyes as if in acute pain. “Kiki, I haven’t asked you for much—”

“You asked me to banish a demon king!”

“—but I am begging you now to pick the right door. I refuse to go back down there and face those porcelain nightmares again.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” I said, “because I lied. I only said that because I didn’t want to scare you, but I think you’ll actually prefer this to the dolls. If we pick the wrong door, the key will be fine.” I gestured upward. “But that will eat us.”

Ashwini’s eyes snapped up to the ceiling. They went wide, and her hand inched toward the sword on her back. And I knew I’d regret it, but I looked, too.

Defying all laws of gravity, an enormous white serpent lay coiled against the ceiling, scales glinting in the artificial moonlight. It was silent and still, apart from two cold silver eyes that blinked slowly at us.

“I think I do prefer this to the dolls,” Ashwini remarked. “But I, for one, am not interested in being eaten. So I’ll just get my sword and—”

As soon as her hand got within an inch of the hilt, the serpent on the ceiling hissed, fangs flashing in warning.

“Okay,” she said, lowering her hand. “We’ll pick a door first. Is there some trick to figuring out which is the right one? They all look identical to me.”

Think, Kiki. What could I do? How could I narrow down the right door when there were nine to choose from and a giant serpent was waiting to devour us?

Was there something I’d packed in Pip’s satchel that could help? I didn’t think the other apple would work as well on a serpent as it had on the wolf Asuras, but maybe there was something else—

Wait!

Heart pounding fiercely in my chest, I reached into Pip’s satchel and seized the small round ball tucked deep into the back pocket.

Ashwini went a little pale. “Is that . . .”

“You might want to hold your breath,” I said, and released one of Pip’s many stink bombs into the room.

As soon as the hideous, vile stench escaped from the ball and hit the air, the serpent reared back, its slit nostrils flaring in revulsion. Beside me, Ashwini gagged, and I was pretty sure I was about to be sick, but the serpent was absolutely horrified.

And, as I’d hoped, the first thing it did was look for a way out.

“There!” I gasped between clenched teeth, as the serpent lunged toward a door on the far north of the room. “That one!”

We rushed to the door. We’d picked the right one, so all the serpent could do was hiss furiously, bound by the rules. I fumbled with the silver key, the stink so overpowering that I could barely keep my hands steady, and turned it in the lock.